Privacy Policy
Effective Date: October 22, 2021
for The First Church of Christ, Scientist & The Christian Science Publishing Society
Posted January 21, 2021
Your privacy is governed by this Privacy Policy, as well as our organization-wide Privacy Statement dated 21 January 2021. This Privacy Policy is part of the “Terms of Service” for the Christian Science QuarterlyⓇ Bible Lessons—Digital Edition, located at quarterly.christianscience.com (the “Service”), a website and Internet-delivered service of The Christian Science Publishing Society (“CSPS,” or “We,” “Us,” “Our”), offering online Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lessons and study resources, as may be modified from time to time by CSPS.
“Personal Data” means any information that We possess that can be used to distinguish or trace the identity of a Service user; other capitalized terms have the meanings given them in the Terms of Service.
Your privacy is important to Us. Therefore, We are committed to respecting Your privacy and the confidentiality of Your Personal Data. This Privacy Policy is designed to assist You in understanding how We use and safeguard the information You provide in using the Service.
1. What information do we collect?
In order to provide You with access to the Service, We may gather and process some or all of the following information. Any of this collected information may include Personal Data.
Registration Information: any information provided when subscribing to and registering for an account to the Service, including, but not limited to, username, password, and email address.
Payment Information: any information You provide when subscribing to the Service that is essential to executing payment transactions with Your credit card.
Customer Service Communications: any information that is reported to Us about the operation of the Service, including bug reports or requests for enhancements.
Audit Logs and Aggregate Data: The Service collects information that helps Us to provide You with a better and more reliable service. This information includes Audit Logs that record basic information about Your interactions with the Service.
We also collect Aggregate Data (such as the number of users who visit a page, timing information related to visits, and browsers used) through a third-party analytics service to help us improve the Service.
Users Under the Age of 18. If You are between the ages of 16 and 18, You may register or subscribe on Your own behalf or be given gift subscriptions without the express consent of Your parent(s) or legal guardian(s) (“Parents”). However, Parents may request the termination of such registrations or subscriptions at any time.
We do not knowingly collect and process Personal Data from individuals under the age of 16 without Parental consent. If You are under the age of 16, have Your Parents register or subscribe on Your behalf. If it is learned that Personal Data has been collected from a registrant or subscriber younger than 16 without such Parental consent, that Personal Data will be deleted from Our database as quickly as practical or the registrant’s or subscriber’s Parents will be contacted to obtain consent. If You are a Parent and have questions about Personal Data, email Us at quarterly@csps.com or call 1-617-450-2880.
2. How do we use this information and for what purpose?
Our primary purpose in collecting information is to provide You with an efficient user experience. We may use the information defined in this Privacy Policy to:
- Provide the Service and customer support.
- Verify Your identity.
- Troubleshoot problems.
- Enforce Our Terms of Service or resolve disputes.
- Notify You about changes and updates to the Service.
- Collect Aggregate Data (see section Audit Log and Aggregate Data) to customize, measure, and improve the Service content and layout. We may share summarized Aggregate Data with our affiliate The First Church of Christ, Scientist (“TFCCS”). This sharing may include Personal Data, and be combined with data about Your other interactions with CSPS, TFCCS, and Our respective service providers, including Your subscriptions, product purchases, website visits, or other communications. We require CSPS and TFCCS departments and Our respective service providers to use Your Aggregate Data in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
We may also need to request specific information from You to help Us confirm Your identity and ensure Your right to access your Personal Data (or to exercise any of Your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that Personal Data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
Additionally, We may use Your information as described below.
Registration Information
We ask for Registration Information in order to verify Your identity and to enable Your use of the Service.
We use Your email address as Your username for the Service. We respect the privacy of personal email accounts, and We will store Your email address just as securely as Personal Data. Your Registration Information will not be passed to unaffiliated third parties for their marketing purposes. We will use Your email address to send You messages about:
- Issues with the Service or Your account
- News about the Service
- Other products offered by CSPS, the Office of the Publisher’s Agent, Mary Baker Eddy’s Writings, and TFCCS. You may opt-out of receiving promotional email messages through the link provided in such communications.
- Any claims related to Your use of the Service, like violating the Terms or infringing third-party rights
Payment Information
For payment transactions, We use third-party banking organizations and other providers of payment services. These services will collect necessary payment processing information in order to process Your payments. You are providing the necessary payment processing information directly to such provider(s).
Customer Service Communications
Information, which is voluntarily submitted in the course of support or via feedback, is used for the purposes of reviewing this feedback and improving the Service. On occasion We may reach out to You to request using Your feedback in marketing the product on Our website or in other communications. We will not share Your feedback without Your permission, and You may request that We anonymize the feedback. Further, We may from time to time ask You to provide information on Your experiences, which will be used to measure and improve quality. You are at no time under any obligation to provide such information. Where You provide it, We may use Your contact information to communicate with You about your feedback. Otherwise, We will not use Personal Data from Your feedback without Your explicit permission.
Audit Log and Aggregate Data
We use Audit Log data to monitor the performance and successful operation of the Service. We may use Audit Logs to troubleshoot issues that arise with the Service. Audit Log information is kept in summary form for statistical purposes and it is not associated with individual users. You are not able to opt-out of the collection of Audit Log information.
We use Aggregate Data, collected through cookies and other browser technologies, to analyze how Our customers use the Service. This analysis helps Us to make improvements to the Service. Aggregate Data is naturally much more detailed than Audit Log data, however We use it only in a summarized, aggregate form. For example, We may aggregate all users’ click data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. It is not Our policy to use Aggregate Data to identify users. However, if in the course of analyzing Aggregate Data We end up directly or indirectly identifying a user, We treat the combined data as Personal Data which will be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
3. To whom do We disclose Your Personal Data?
We will not sell, rent, or trade to any third party the Personal Data collected in Registration Information, Payment Information, Customer Service Communications, Audit Logs, and Aggregate Data.
We will only disclose Personal Data:
- To Our service providers in order to provide You the Service.
- To law enforcement or government authorities to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request or in the event We need to respond to a legal action involving Your specific account.
Your credit card information is handled by a third-party payment processor that is regulated by banking industry best practices. Our payment processors comply with regulations regarding the handling of Your payment information. This information will not be used for any other reason except as instructed by Us.
We also engage other service providers to process subscriptions on Our behalf, and they collect and store Registration Information (except credit card numbers) in order to help us provide the Service to You. This information will not be used for any other reason except as instructed by Us.
Information collected by Us may be stored and processed in any country in which We and Our service providers maintain facilities. By using the Service, You consent to the transfer of information outside the country where You reside and/or from which You use the Service.
4. How do We protect Personal Data?
We take reasonable administrative, technical, and physical security measures to protect against the unauthorized access, destruction or alteration of Personal Data, which will remain in the Service until You delete it or CSPS decides to terminate the account per the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Although We encrypt Your password and encrypt the traffic between our servers and Your browser, You should be aware that Internet communications are not always secure. Please consider this as you enter Personal Data into the Service.
Also, keep in mind that Our security measures may be rendered ineffective if you fail to maintain the confidentiality of Your username and password. By using the Service, You accept full responsibility for any harm resulting from Your failure to maintain such confidentiality.
If we learn of a security systems breach that involves your Personal Data, we will attempt to notify you through the email address you provide, and we may post a notice on the Service. If you have questions, please contact dataprotection@csps.com.
5. How long is Personal Data kept by Us?
We retain Personal Data for as long as is necessary to:
- Provide the use of the Service
- Communicate with You regarding the Service or other services that We offer
- Comply with applicable laws, regulatory requests, and orders from competent authorities
- Enforce Our Terms
- Fulfill any of the other purposes detailed in this Privacy Policy.
6. What are cookies and related electronic technologies, and how do We use them?
"Cookies" are text files stored on Your computer or device that provide functionality for the Service and help the Service to gather navigation and Analytics Data.
When You use the Service, We, or Our service providers may place or access persistent and session cookies, browser storage, and other tracking technologies to: (a) store Your username (i.e., email address), name, and other account information; (b) analyze the usage of the Service; and (c) customize the Service to Your preferences.
We and Our service providers may also use other Internet technologies, such as web beacons or pixel tags, and other similar technologies, to deliver or communicate with cookies and track Your use of the Service and Our affiliated websites (including to serve You ads when You are on other websites or the Internet when We can access those cookies). We also may include web beacons in email messages or newsletters to determine whether You opened them. Web beacons allow Us to understand the time and date of when You have opened an email and when You have utilized a link within the email to visit a website. Our web beacons do not collect Personally Identifiable Information. If You wish to disable web beacons, You should do so by turning images "off" in Your email client. Please see Your email client for more information. As We adopt additional technology, We may also gather additional information through other methods.
We also use these automated technologies to collect and analyze: (a) information related to the devices You use to access or interact with the Service, such as: geolocation information, unique device identifiers and other information about Your mobile phone or other mobile device(s), browser type, browser language; and (b) information related to the ways in which You interact with the Service, such as: referring and exit pages and URLs, platform type, IP addresses, the number of clicks, domain names, landing pages, pages viewed and the order of those pages, the amount of time spent on particular pages, the date and time You used the Service, and other similar information.
Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but You can modify Your browser setting to decline cookies, or to alert You when cookies are being sent, by visiting the Help portion of Your browser’s toolbar. If You choose to decline cookies, please note that You may not be able to sign in, customize, or use some of the interactive features of the Service.
7. How far does Our responsibility extend?
This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by the Service. We do not exercise control over or accept responsibility for other users or websites and are not liable for their activities. In addition, the Service may contain links to our affiliated sites which have their own privacy policies.
8. Users from outside the United States
This Service is hosted in the United States and is governed by United States law. If You are using the Service from outside the United States, please be aware that Your information may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States where We operate Our databases and where our service providers’ may locate their servers. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in Your country. By using the Service, You consent to Your information being transferred to Our facilities and to the facilities of those third parties with whom We share it as described in Our Privacy Policy.
9. California Do Not Track Disclosure
The Service does not currently respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals.
10. No rights of third parties
This Privacy Policy does not create rights enforceable by third parties.
11. Can this Privacy Policy be modified?
We reserve the right to change the Privacy Policy at any time. Any material changes to the Privacy Policy will be effective upon the earlier of thirty (30) calendar days following Our dispatch of an email notice to You or thirty (30) calendar days following Our posting of notice of the changes on the Service. These changes will be effective on the posted effective date.
Please note that at all times You are responsible for updating Your information to provide Us with Your most current email address. In the event that the last email address that You have provided Us is not valid, or for any reason is not capable of delivering to You the notice described above, Our dispatch of the email containing such notice will nonetheless constitute effective notice of the changes described in the notice. If You do not wish to permit changes in Our use of Your information, You must deactivate Your account. Continued use of the Service following notice of such changes shall indicate Your acknowledgement of such changes and agreement to be bound by the changed Privacy Policy.
12. What rights do You have and how can You contact Us?
If You would like to exercise Your right to view, correct, complete, or remove Your Personal Data, please contact Us at dataprotection@csps.com. Upon verification of Your identity, We will attempt to quickly fulfill Your request.
